$5 Valet Parking on the Square
Decatur Metro | October 15, 2008Over at The Decatur Minute, Catherine notes the new valet parking being offered on Friday and Saturday nights at the top of the N. McDonough loop on the Square. For $5, you can avoid the hassle of trolling for metered parking and just let a valet hoof it to/from the DeKalb County Courthouse lot for you.
The idea is the brainchild of Saba, but obviously anyone can use it. I think everyone (the city included) is interested to see if the idea of paying $5 to park (not including tip) will catch on. If so, it will be a great solution to filling up that empty deck!
Latest from Decaturish
I may be wrong about this, but I thought anyone could park in the deck behind the courthouse. I’m always confused by people complaining about evening parking in Decatur when you can just pull into the deck for free. Or, am I somehow parking illegally? Or is this just another case of urbanites refusing to walk over half a block for dinner/etc. (after they just went to the gym and did 4 miles on a treadmill)?
dlb, you are correct, and I agree. Free parking isn’t that hard to find in Decatur ever, but especially in the evening.
The “Courthouse/County Deck” is FREE for anyone after 5 in the evening. And it’s only $2.00 from 8AM to 5PM, for the whole day. I believe weekends are free. Even when the deck was closed on weekends for some renovations or repaving this summer, the city made sure to open up some more free parking in the Callaway Building lot directly across the street. The parking options are here on the city website.
Many people roll their eyes when I mention the County garage; they perceive it as being “too far” and won’t use it even for free. Then you have the folks that are willing to pay $5 on the weekends in the Lanier lot on Church St (behind Raging Burrito) to go to show’s at Eddie’s or wherever. I frequently see people lined up to get in there, and most of them are not going to RB (where you do get the $5 back if you leave in 1.5 hrs). I’m sorry they didn’t get the valet operational before the end of this year’s Concerts on the Square, since I suspect many patrons (especially families with kids) would use it for the convenience.
To be clear…the County Deck is free after 5pm. The valet, which lets you drop your car off at the Square (but is still parked in that deck) is $5.
In the interest of clarity…the metered parking regulations, as listed in the tips section of this blog, as well on the city’s website (which are somewhat vague), are in reality wrong. As stated on the meters, which are all but impossible to read: 8 am -6 pm, Sunday’s and Holiday’s Excepted. In reality, parking is FREE ON SATURDAY, as well, because it is not enforced. Most people, seem to know this, and they don’t pay. I find it inherently wrong to penalize people for doing the right thing; especially since the cities website states “Parking meters are not intended to provide a source of revenue for the City of Decatur.” And inasmuch as I don’t really want people parking in front of my store all day, and some do, I’ve been making every effort to tell people that there is no need to feed (the meters). If the City is not going to enforce the regulations, they should CHANGE the rtegulations. Why not market the fact? FREE PARKING ON SATURDAY!
In recent years, the City of Decatur hasn’t aggressively enforced the Saturday metered parking in an effort to support our local retailers and customers. From time to time, we do have problems with MARTA patrons and others who use our downtown parking on weekends as a convenient option to travel to downtown Atlanta for sporting events. We have also noticed a growing problem with downtown employees and wait staff using the convenient, metered parking on the weekends and tying up these spaces that should be reserved for customers. The city is moving forward with the installation of computerized parking meters city-wide that makes it easier for us to identify and ticket long-term parkers who consistently abuse the two-hour parking limit. This new system will include an option that allows customers to pay for the parking meters by cell phone. This new technology is being tested at 54 parking meters on E. Court Square and N. McDonough to make certain that all of the problems are worked out before we take it city-wide. Parking meters are not intended to generate revenue but serve as a parking management system. We continue to look for ways to improve the system and work to keep metered spaces turning over. We are monitoring the Saturday parking situation and if necessary will return to Saturday enforcement. However, we would not begin issuing tickets on Saturdays before we worked to educate customers and business owners through warning tickets and educational materials.
Catherine:
Thanks for the very professional and informative post. Sounds like y’all have this under control as much as it can be, and are anticipating future issues before they occur. Kudos.
Ditto! Thanks for the update Catherine!
Catherine: recent is a relaive term. I have complained to Lyn, ad nauseam, for going on fifteen years, about the parking problems around my store. Actually, I stopped a couple of years ago, because it just fell on deaf ears: “Decatur has plenty of parking options.” It is laughable, that the city believes its efforts support the local retailers and customers. By tripling the meter rates? The meters don’t manage parking, fair & consistent ticketing does. So now, the city will pay how much money, to replace meters, which I believe are relatively new, so that the new meters can phone people who have stayed too long. Give me a break! Had the city not enabled habitual offenders in the past, I would not be typing this now!
This long history of inconsistent parking enforcement is one of the major reasons that neighbors fear the shared parking concept proposed for the 315 Ponce project. Progressive parking management strategies can’t work without consistent enforcement.
City officials must face up to the fact that , given the current lack of enforcement, people aren’t willing ( i.e. forced ) to use many of the parking options identified in the Transportation Plan. They choose metered on street areas or ,in the case of the area around 315 Ponce, a free space on a residential street .
I think that the parking ticket fines should go up. I think they are $15 now?
If they were around $40 I guarantee self policing would rise!